


Broken Pieces

by FalseRoar



Series: Can You Wake Up? [2]
Category: Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series), markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hiding, POV Second Person, Post-Who Killed Markiplier?, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 18:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalseRoar/pseuds/FalseRoar
Summary: A short story that takes place after the events of Can You Wake Up? in which Dark, Wilford, and Y/N all react to a thunderstorm.





	Broken Pieces

Dark paused in his paperwork and sat back in his chair with a sigh, taking in the empty conference room. Well, nearly empty. Everyone else had immediately left after the last meeting, all except for the Host, who continued to narrate in a quick, even pace to himself. It had become routine after the meeting for both to stay behind for hours at a time, even though neither commented on it.

Although Dark would not admit it, he did not mind the constant murmur as he worked. In fact, it made a nice change of pace from his office, where the constantly crackling fire in the fireplace was the only noise. He found that he could keep one ear on the Host’s narration to know what the others were doing in the house with much less effort than his usual methods, useful in the event he needed to intervene.

And it filled the silence. Something the fire was failing to do more and more often it seemed.

Dark bent over to start reviewing another sheet, to make sense of the budget for Bim’s latest show. Admittedly, most of it was to cover the lawsuits.

“—flips the table, ending the card game early. A storm picks up speed on its way to the house to arrive earlier than expected. Bim Trimmer—”

Dark paused. The Host did not normally comment on the weather. More importantly, he had found that the Host seemed to have a knack for saying something just at the moment Dark was most likely to be listening.

That meant this was probably going to be a bad one.

“Where is Wilford now?” Dark asked, still looking at the lines of numbers.

“Outside, Wilford is asking a question of the King of the Squirrels.”

Outside?

“The King of the Squirrels directs Wilford Warfstache back toward the house.”

Dark breathed out, trying not to sound too relieved.

“Wilford stops to speak to Chef Iplier and then continues on to the living room where Bim Trimmer, Google, Ed Edgar, and Silver Shepherd are arguing over who should have to clean up the cards. They stop long enough to answer Wilford’s question, and then Ed Edgar calls Google a derisive term involving his motherboard which does not make any logical sense.”

Dark listened as he made a note on the page and then stood up, shuffling the papers as if he had finished his work even though he knew that he was not fooling the Host. By the time he finished, Wilford had been around the entire first floor speaking to seemingly everyone he found and was now on his way upstairs.

“Which staircase?” Dark asked as he stood.

“The farthest. Wilford sees the darkening sky outside and picks up his pace toward the third floor.”

Dark nodded and left his papers where they were. He was just about to walk out the door when the Host spoke again.

“The room is not empty.”

Dark glanced back to ask what that was supposed to mean, but a rumble of distant thunder just made him curse and take off toward the stairs. He couldn’t risk his usual method of travel, not when Wilford was on edge. He’d learned that lesson after one of the first storms in this place.

He knew all the ways Wilford had to cope with storms, he’d seen them all over the years. The odd brush of lightning or thunder might only send him into a quiet, contemplative mood, while the real storms could bring out his more destructive side. When that happened, Wilford was a danger to himself and everyone around him, more so than usual. The worst times were when he remembered why. Recently, he had taken to finding some excuse to hang out in the Host’s soundproof recording room, “helping” with the Host’s broadcasts. Maybe that was where he was going now? But then why go outside, why stop and talk to the others when it meant risking the storm?

Dark heard another roll of thunder and sped up, reaching the top of the stairs before it finished. There he stopped short and stared when he saw Wilford back into the hall, out of one of the bedrooms.

_Your_ bedroom.

“What are you doing, Wilford?” Dark asked carefully as he approached. The door was open, of course. Wilford didn’t bother much when it came to knocking. Or locks.

“Oh, I was just…” Wilford trailed off and Dark saw his lost, confused expression. “Looking for…something…”

Dark looked at the open door and felt a sense of unease. It wasn’t a feeling that he was familiar with, which made it that much worse as it dawned on him what Wilford had already realized: this was your first thunderstorm here in the house. While Dark had been focused on Wilford, Wilford had been looking for you.

Dark reached out and knocked, even though he could clearly see through the gap in the door. “Y/N? Are you in there?”

There was no response, and after a minute Dark went in. Of course you weren’t there, but he had to see it for himself.

“Y/N may have gone downstairs,” Dark suggested, but the unease was still there. He saw the lightning through the window, how Wilford flinched and grabbed his arm out of reflex, his eyes shut tight against the sound that would inevitably follow. Worse, he saw the flicker of pink around the man’s shoulders, the last thing they needed right now. “Come along, Wil, we’ll—”

_The room is not empty._

Dark was already looking to the closet door as the thunder shook the house, so loud that it almost drowned out the other sound in the room. He would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it.

He opened the closet door to find you sitting in the corner, eyes clenched shut with your hands over your ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise.

Dark stared down at you, the words stopping short in his throat, feeling his shell crack and let the thoughts he normally suppressed with ease come flooding in. How long had you been here, like this? No, how long had you been alone, in _that_ house? How many storms did you have to go through by yourself, each flash of lightning a reminder of the house’s curse that kept you trapped, each roll of thunder another gunshot in your ears?

Without speaking, Wilford slipped past Dark and sat down next to you, whispering something in your ear that made you smile before the next flash of lightning. Even though Wilford was shaking, he put an arm around your shoulders, holding you close as you took hold of one of his suspenders and leaned your head on his shoulder.

He shouldn’t be seeing this, you wouldn’t want _him_ of all people here. This would just hurt his plans for you in the long run. With that excuse, Dark was about to leave you two alone when Wilford reached up and pulled him into the closet and onto the floor next to him with a strength that would have surprised those who didn’t know the man. You had so few clothes, so few belongings to call your own still between here and Mark’s home, that there was room enough for the three of you to sit together once Dark gave in and shut the door to help block out the lightning. He sat at enough of an angle that he could see your faces, how you clung to each other and Wilford to him in the darkness.

Dark wanted to stretch out, to envelop you both in his aura and take you…somewhere else. Away from the storm. He could end this so quickly, if you would just let him. But there was no guarantee whether Wilford would go, or if this would be one of those terrible times where he resisted, where his own aura showed itself. As for you, Dark knew how you reacted to even a small taste of what he could do. No, he needed more time to work on you, to build trust before he could take you there. Before he could get you to cling to him like you clung so easily to Wilford now.

While Dark considered this, he watched you mutter something that made Wilford give a grimace of a smile, watched as you two joked back and forth to keep your minds occupied, away from the house that called for you with each lightning strike.

By the time the storm was finally over, you two had fallen asleep leaning on each other, Wilford occasionally snoring lightly. Two broken pieces, not really adding up to a whole even on the best days. But it was enough to get through this storm, at least.

The more cynical part of Dark bitterly wondered what that was like, but the other half leaned back and rested his head against the wall, listening to the rain continue to fall outside, to the sound of you and Wilford breathing quietly, to the silence. Although Dark would not admit it, this was…nice.


End file.
